Noticing a trend - we were also recommended the hotel by the airport information after they told us everything would be full - which was obviously not true after seeing how many hotels Hanoi has to offer! Pacific Prince is in SERIOUS need of renovations and at $28 per night it is seriously overpriced, but having said that, they organised our tour to Halong Bay on the Imperial Cruise - and it was everything they promised! The boat and bungalows on Cat Ba Island were straight out of the extremely tempting brochure. We were very happy with the tour and feel it was money very well spent.

Upon return to Hanoi, the hotel allowed us to relax and freshen up before catching a very late train out of Hanoi and we werent expected to pay a cent.

We stayed here for a couple of nights after airport staff recommended it and organised a taxi to the door for us, meaning we avoided all the taxi/hotel touts at Hanoi airport.

The hotel is central to the old quarter, the cathedral and the lake and is in a safe street with lots of Vietnamese places to eat nearby.

The best thing about this hotel is the staff, they are extremely helpful and their English is very good. They organised train and bus tickets for us and even allowed us to leave our bags with them and use a shower on a day we weren't staying at the hotel. I feel happy to recommend this place to other backpackers.

We stayed here for 2 nights during a 3 day trip to Hanoi. It was recommended to us by the travel agency at the airport. We were shown a very nice brochure and for $18 USD (special promotional price) we couldn't really be too fussy. The hotel was quite old, the staff did not speak very good english and trying to order room service was an absolute nightmare! We ended up having to go downstairs to the restaurant and point out which dishes we wanted off the menu. Still the food was ok. We stayed in a twin room, it was clean and the air-con worked. There was also hot water, altho in the heat we didn't need it! The one good thing about this hotel, is the breakfast.... a full plate of eggs, salad and toast! Location is also good, but I probably wouldn't stay here again, as you could probably find somewhere better in a more central location.

Luckily we arrived late and departed very early so were only in the room for 8 - 10 hrs. The bed spreads were filthy the walls dirty and the bathroom walls had holes and patches all over. The whole place looked as though it was well past it's use by date. The only redeaming
feature was the breakfast, it was better than a lot that we had in similar hotels.

This was well below the standard that we expected we had paid for.

Ron Berry